Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1 (7 page)

Chapter Fourteen

R
eece drove east
toward Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, eyeing the moisture-laden clouds that hung from the sky, in places hugging the ground. He had a vivid flash of the janitor splayed out on the cement floor and hoped he hadn’t died. He wondered who was trying to kill him.

He’d caught a lucky break with the employment records from the hospital, and was hoping he’d be able to learn something from Tracey’s emergency contact, Mary Ann Fletcher. Reece held up the scrap of paper from the hospital and read off her address. He drove past an assortment of small well-kept yards. Spotting her address, he drove into the driveway in front of a beige house with red trim that was in need of a paint job. The small porch was covered with more than a week’s worth of yellowing newspapers and an assortment of white plastic trash bags. He didn’t care to guess what the trash bags contained, but figured it was dog poop.

He pressed the doorbell, and heard its echo through the small single-story home. Reece took a deep breath, preparing himself, and the faint smell of mold came to him. He was pressing the bell a second time when he heard someone fumbling with the knob. It seemed like whoever was inside the home wasn’t exactly sure how to open the front door. An elderly woman with a nasal cannula shoved into her nostrils and threads of stiff white hair sticking out at odd angles from beneath a yellow scarf popped out. She stood staring at him with deep-set gray eyes as if he’d been the first to ring her bell in years.

She began to look ill, and then a slow billow of smoke rose from the corners of her mouth. In the fingers of her vein-covered purple paw she held a long cigarette with two inches of ash about to drop at any moment.

She brought the cigarette to her lips and sucked until the hollow parts of her cheeks drew in toward her mouth. The sight caused Reece’s throat to constrict, and made him feel like coughing.

“What do you want?” the woman hollered in a voice louder than warranted.

“Mrs. Fletcher, my name’s Reece Culver,” he said, holding out his private investigator’s license.

“You’re from Colorado. What do you want with me?” she said, more observant than her physical demeanor indicated.

“I’m investigating the disappearance of Tracey Roberts. She listed you as her emergency contact at the hospital in Tulsa,” Reece explained, hoping she’d invite him in. The woman stood looking at him, like she was trying to decide what to do next. She took another drag on the cigarette, and he watched the ash break off and drop onto the toe of his shoe. Finally, she retreated backwards into her home, waving him in.

Most of the furniture was covered by dull yellow sheets with a thick covering of dust. The walls were decorated with brown striped wallpaper, and the air smelled like a mixture of cat urine, cigarettes, and something sweet that he couldn’t identify. The woman parked a green oxygen tank by a gold recliner covered in cat hair. As she slowly sat down, she displaced a small cloud of dander.

“Take a seat, Culver,” she said, pointing to a matching recliner. Reece sat down amid a huge cloud of rising dust as he sank into the worn chair. He fought off a sneeze and realized the noise he’d heard when he’d first arrived was coming from a television set on its loudest volume. Noticing it at the same time, the woman dug the remote control out from under a stack of used cigarette packages and lowered the sound.

“What was it you were looking for, Culver?” she asked in a sarcastic tone.

“I’m working on a missing person’s case,” he answered. “I’m looking for Tracey Roberts.”

“After all these years, why bother? If she’d wanted to be found, she would have called,” the woman said in an annoyed tone, blowing smoke from both nostrils. “Who’s turning that stone back over? Let me guess: it’s got to be Crystal.”

“You know Crystal Thomas?” Reece asked.

“Is that what she calls herself these days?” the woman asked. “That damn child never could let anything alone.”

She took another deep drag of smoke. “That Crystal has had more men than I have cats. What’s that silly child looking for now?”

“Did you spend much time with Crystal when she lived in Oklahoma?” he asked, getting the feeling that if he didn’t change the subject he was going to waste half a day listening to what she thought of Crystal.

“No, not until she got into boys. She used to come for the weekend and stay with me. I liked her company at first,” the old woman said.

“Did something happen to change your mind?”

“She met a boy from another school. He was two years older than her, and I wondered what a sixteen-year-old boy would want with a fourteen-year-old. Of course, it didn’t take much imagination to figure that out. Crystal was one of those girls that developed early, like her mother. At least she didn’t get herself pregnant like Tracey did,” she said, adjusting the oxygen cannula in her nostrils and inhaling more smoke at the same time.

Reece could feel his eyes starting to water and wasn’t sure if it was from cat hair, dust, or smoke.

“Oprah’s on. You ever watch her? She’s great,” the old woman said. She picked up the remote and began increasing the television volume.

“Can I see the room Crystal stayed in when she came to visit?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s that one down the hallway. Help yourself. It’s time for the show.”

He walked down the hallway, passing an assortment of black and white photos, and idly wondered where the cats were hiding. He came to a door and reached for the handle.

“Not that one. At the end of the hall,” the old lady shouted.

Reece followed her directions and turned the brass knob of a light wood door. He walked in and looked around. The walls were pink, and a window at the top of a queen-sized bed was covered with yellow drapes. The walls were covered with an assortment of movie tickets, ribbons, and school photos. Reece studied them, and noticed how different the clothing back then looked. By the closet he saw a corkboard covered with pictures.

Reece came upon an eight-by-ten photo of a woman with long red hair and bright blue eyes —was that Tracey Roberts? She held a small girl in her arms, and two older boys stood to one side. A man on the left had left a noticeable gap between himself and the others. He had a slight build with curly brown hair and a muted smile. The kids looked sad, but for some reason the mother looked proud. He was guessing the look was put on for whoever was taking the photo, and had nothing to do with how she felt.

The picture was taken in front of a single-story house with green window trim and white siding. He guessed from the ages of the children that it had been taken in the mid eighties. The corkboard was filled with other photos of Crystal and her friends. In one photo she stood with a boy in an Edison High School football uniform. Reece guessed that was the boyfriend Mrs. Fletcher had mentioned earlier. Crystal was holding a football, and the boy had his arms around her and was kissing her on the cheek.

He was looking at a bunch of old movie tickets stuffed into the edge of the frame when he spotted what looked like a Rolling Stones concert ticket. It looked older than the rest, and he doubted Crystal had gone to Rolling Stones concerts as a child. He plucked the ticket from the wood border, and read the date. It was from the November 1981 concert in St. Louis. He did some quick math, and confirmed this must have been a keepsake from one of her parents. Crystal wasn’t born until August of 1982.

He stuffed the ticket into his pants pocket, and as he turned to go, he found Ann Fletcher standing a few steps behind him.
How long had she been there?

“I hope you aren’t taking things,” she said.

“Mrs. Fletcher,” he said, trying to deflect her attention by pointing to a large group photo he’d seen earlier, “who are these people?”

“That’s the family,” she said, walking up, bringing a trail of stale smoke-filled air with her. “That’s me and my husband Fred. That man there is Owen Roberts, Tracey’s husband.”

“Do you remember what year the picture was taken?” Reece asked.

“I’d guess 1985,” she said. “If I were you and I really wanted to find Tracey, I’d concentrate my energy on locating Owen. He’s the only person I can think of that would have something to gain.”

Chapter Fifteen

G
eorge Kendall walked
into his hotel room, bothered by the name Owen Roberts. He’d been considering that last name since leaving the earlier meeting. Kendall sat on the bed and saw a row of pigeons on an adjacent roofline. Things hadn’t gone well for him in the afternoon meetings at the federal building in downtown St. Louis. Special Agent Stephen Cox had appointed himself lead and Kendall was pissed. It had been the Missouri federal attorney’s idea to include the FBI in their investigation, and now they were taking over the case. He was no longer sure he’d be the chief prosecutor.

Kendall opened his laptop, and while waiting for it to boot up, he went to the bathroom for a glass of water. When the cold water washed over the new crown in the back of his mouth, he made a funny face. He set the glass down a little too hard, enough to crack it.

Returning to his laptop, he scrolled down a list of websites until he came to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He went through a series of login screens until he found the directories he was looking for. It had been standard protocol for the CBI to run an extended background check on all of the personnel working in his office. He scanned the entries until he found the original folder for Crystal, dated September 23, 2007. He opened the folder and clicked on her file, looking for the list of relatives she’d provided.

He found the heading
Birth Parents
and read the names Tracey and Owen Roberts. He stared at the names, thinking back to the meeting he’d just come from with the FBI. How many men named Owen Roberts lived in St. Louis?

*

Crystal splashed water on her face and glanced down at the skimpy black thong she’d picked for dinner, knowing the task ahead would be easy. The collar of her blouse was slightly crooked, so she adjusted it, lining up the red silk edge just above the black lace of her bra. With both hands cupping the undersides of her breasts, she pushed up. She stuck her plump lips outward, puckering at the mirror, and applied one last coat of restless red. Staring at the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she looked down at her bare feet and then upward to her forehead, then squeezed her buttocks tight, pulling in her stomach. The skirt she’d laid out earlier was sitting on the bed.

The phone rang, startling her.

“Hello.”

“Crystal, it’s George. I’m down in the Clock bar. Will you come join me for a drink?”

“Oh, okay, I was reading a magazine, but I guess so, George,” Crystal said with simulated hesitation. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Bingo. She hung up the phone, pulled the skirt off the bed, and stepped into it, looking sideways at the mirror. After taking a seat on the edge of the bed she slid her feet into a pair of three-inch black high heels. Crystal plugged the charger into the phone, clicked on the lamp next to the bed, and left for the big date that would compromise her boss for good.

Chapter Sixteen

R
eece was tired
of chasing pavement and yearned to stretch his legs. He took the exit off the Mark Twain Turnpike and entered a neighborhood where the vast majority of the homes had plywood nailed over their windows. He soon spied Calvin Avenue, where Owen and Tracey Roberts chose to live on while raising their three children. He followed the directions he’d copied onto the lower half of his grease-stained McDonalds bag, past 1960s-era houses that looked like abandoned remnants after some toxic chemical spill.

He parked in front of the house listed as 4867 Calvin Avenue. When he killed the car’s ignition, he was met by the howl of semis coming from the highway he’d just exited. It seemed like a horrible place to raise a family, but maybe the highway hadn’t been around then.

Reece switched off the headlights and sat in the car with the doors locked. The street was pitch black, and he had a funny feeling about approaching the house. His cellphone buzzed on vibrate mode in the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out and answered.

“Reece Culver Investigations.”

“Reece, it’s your mother. Where are you?”

“I’m parked on a residential street on the north side of St. Louis. Why?”

“What are you doing there?”

“I’m trying to locate a missing person,” Reece said. “I’m working a case.”

“Oh, is Haisley with you?”

“No, why would Haisley be with me?” Reece said.

“I don’t know. I guess I just thought he might be.”

Reece was irritated by his mother’s remark, and he stared toward the lone illuminated house at the end of the street.

“You’re not still trying to solve your father’s murder, are you?”

“No … well, yes, I am still trying to solve that,” Reece said. “But no, that’s not what I’m doing right now.”

“I’ve told you time and time again to leave that to the authorities,” she said. “I mean it, Reece. The men who killed your father—“

Reece had heard this lecture so many times, and after his long drive he was not in the mood for it. “Look, Mom, I said I’m on another case. This has nothing to do with Dad. This is an investigation, for which I’m being paid good money, I might add.”

“Well, all right, then,” she said, and from her tone of voice he could tell she didn’t think that added up to much. Not like his wonderful older brother. “I thought you were coming to visit me when you were in Tulsa,” she went on.

“I can still do that,” he said, wanting to get her off the phone. “I still have unfinished business down there, and I’ll give you a call when I’m in town.”

“You make sure you do. It’s hard enough being all alone after the death of your father, but when your children never come to visit—“

“I said I’ll call,” he said, trying to stop a new torrent of complaints. She’d never paid him a lick of attention when he was growing up, but now that she was lonely, he all of a sudden was to blame for not visiting her. “Do you have any plans tomorrow night?”

“No, I guess not,” she said slowly.

“How does six work? I’ll drop by and we’ll go to Jamils Steakhouse. My treat.”

“Okay, Reece. That sounds good.” For the first time she sounded happy. She’d gotten her son to do what she wanted.

“I gotta go,” Reece, said. “See you tomorrow.”

He sighed as he clicked off. He shouldn’t be so hard on her. He should try to act more like a comforting son. That’s what he told himself, anyway. It wasn’t his fault she could so conveniently forget the past.

Opening the glove compartment, he pulled out his holster and the .357 Magnum he always carried, figuring it might come in handy from the looks of the area. He kicked the door open a little too hard and wished he hadn’t when the large green door springs popped it back toward him. He pulled his foot back into the floor well just before the door slammed shut with a loud “clank.” Why did his mother have to call? he thought as he got out of the car.

He walked onto the unkempt lawn, adjusting his eyes to the dark. He studied the lit-up house across the street, wondering if they might have known Owen or his missing wife Tracey, but decided he’d hold off on knocking on any doors. As his attention turned to the front of the Roberts home, he saw that the slender windows on each side of the front door had been covered in plywood from the inside.

With the trunk of the car open, he pulled out his nine-inch LED Maglite and lit the street behind the car with its strong white beam. Satisfied that the light would guide him through the darkness he extinguished it and pushed the trunk closed.

Reece walked toward the front door, feeling the weeds scrape his pants with their rough edges, and noticed two ancient oil stains where a car had once parked. He walked up on the porch, and listened, half wondering if Owen might still inhabit the place. Reece thought he heard a noise coming from inside, but wasn’t sure. He tried the doorknob and found it was locked. Leaning back, he slammed his left shoulder against the front door, but it didn’t budge. Maybe he’d have better luck trying the back.

Making his way across the front yard, he saw a faint glow coming from the front room of a house down the block on the opposite side of the street. Maybe those neighbors had known the Roberts family back then. He’d come back the next day to canvas the neighborhood.

Reece walked around the house until he came to the man door on the side of the garage. Inside he saw the remains of a motorbike. Pressing down on the Maglite, he shined it inside. The motorcycle was an old Honda seventy with flat, rotted tires and a rusty seat stained from the springs below. The engine was badly coroded and he wondered if Crystal or her two brothers had once ridden last. He painted the side of the garage with light, and saw bare weathered wood with peeled paint stretching outward.

Reece switched off the Maglite and made his way into the back yard, adjusting once again to the darkness. The stars were peeking out from the clouds, and he could just make out the back porch, a triple-stepped concrete slab. He tried the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. He stepped back and gave it a savage kick, knocking it open just enough to enter. Something was blocking it from the inside. Reece squeezed past the door, and immediately the stench of rotting garbage filled his nose. He turned his head and retched, almost losing his dinner. At least he knew the garbage was recent.

With the flashlight on he saw a sea of broken bottles littering the floor. Long strips of wallpaper curled down the walls. Reece slid his feet as he advanced, pushing aside glass shards and who knows what with every step. The room was pitch black and the small beam of light lit a patch just a few feet wide.

The first room he came to was the kitchen, off a short hallway from the back door. A table with long aluminum legs and a yellow vinyl top sat in the center, covered with an assortment of beer cans and bread wrappers. He lit up the cupboards, noticing the absence of doors.

Reece heard something from the next room. That was definitely someone. He started forward, dropping his hand to the grip of his revolver. The floor in the next room was covered with trash, and in the center of the room sat a red flyer wagon piled high with the burnt remains of the doors from the kitchen cabinets. He swept the room with light, looking for clues. He heard a creak in the distance and he knew he had company. Reece pulled out his gun and held it down to his side. A few more steps and he came to a doorway that led into another large room. He doused the walls with the flashlight’s beam, looking for the source of the noise, and sensed movement to his left.

He turned in that direction, leading with the light. Someone grabbed his right wrist, and he swung the revolver up, making contact. He heard a grimace of pain as he brought the flashlight around and saw he’d knocked a vagrant to his knees. The homeless guy looked up at Reece, clenching his chin. A thin bead of blood oozed between the fingers of the man’s right hand.

“Why you do that? I just tryin’ to hep you,” the man mumbled from his crouch. Reece brought the gun up, drawing a bead on the guy’s forehead and said, “Stay put unless you want something a whole lot worse.”

He continued toward the next room with his gun pointed out. Painting the walls of a smaller room with light, he spotted a lone dresser in the corner. The floor was covered in old aluminum beer cans and yellowed newspaper pages. Reece walked to the dresser. He opened the top of four drawers and shined the narrow beam inside, seeing nothing but the wood bottom of a well made tongue and groove drawer. He worked his way down the chest.

The bottom drawer was heavy to pull out and contained an assortment of junk he guessed might have been left over from the house’s last occupants. There were batteries, rubber bands, Band-Aids, playing cards, and stacks of poker chips. Reece brought one of the chips up to his face, shining the light on it and read “Malum Farms Casino.”

He felt a chill run down his back. That was the name of the place where they’d found his father’s dead body. He pocketed the chip and continued rummaging through the drawer.

At the bottom he spotted a legal-sized manila envelope. He pulled it out from under the three inches of junk that lay on top. One of the corners had been burned and the black ash remains crumbed off as he bent back the copper clasp that held the top flap closed. Reece pulled out a thick stack of documents and laid them down on the top of the dresser. He paged the first document off the stack and set it down beside the others. His flashlight illuminated what looked like a checklist written across a single sheet of paper. It looked like a man’s cursive handwriting.

Duct Tape

Rope

Box Cutter

Tarpaulin

Map

Gas Cans

Tie Wraps

Canteens

The last words ran into the burned area and looked like the description of something. Reece stared at the words and wondered if Owen had written the list the day his wife went missing. He took the next piece of paper off the stack of documents and saw a hand-drawn picture of the southern U.S. He set it aside and spotted an old travel magazine folded open to an article about a Mexican fishing village named Cabo San Lucas. Reece scanned the article, familiar with the location, and figured back then the town had little more than its marina and fleet of fisherman. He pulled several more sheets of meaningless paper off the stack, shining the light at each and came to a map. He opened it and panned the light down at what looked like magic marker running down the highways from St. Louis, Missouri, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, over to Oklahoma City, and then south through Texas to Brownsville.

Reece shoved the documents back into the envelope and stashed it back into the drawer, thinking he’d come back and get it on his way out. He was just about to shove the drawer closed when he spotted a small black book. The first couple of pages were empty and then he spotted what looked like a ledger of gambling losses. Each entry read like (lost $450 – Owe S.S. 9/23/82). Reece thumbed his way through the book, and after a few pages of similar entries showing wins and losses, he came to more blank pages. Shining the flashlight into the drawer, he found what looked like a legal document under a stack of yellow cocktail napkins. He pulled it out and read over the paperwork for a second mortgage on the house he was standing in. The date on the top was written in cursive and looked like July 20, 1989. Near the bottom of the last page Reece saw the loan amount $45,000.00 and the signature Owen L. Roberts.

After putting everything back as he’d found it, he pushed closed the dresser drawer and left the room. Reece came around a corner and walked through a doorway into what looked like the den. He shined the light along the walls, not wanting a repeat of what he’d experienced earlier with the vagrant. On the far side of the room he spotted something. It was a person standing behind what remained of a burned-out sofa.

The figure was tall with a long gray trench coat, black gloves, and dark combat boots. Reece studied the stranger, shining the light upward toward his face, and saw only a narrow chin, which made him wonder whether it was a man or woman. The cheeks were reddish, and the wide-brimmed black hat covered the eyes.

“What are you doing?” Reece asked, lowering the light so he could still see the figure but not blind him. He heard a scratch on the floor from behind and half turned, still keeping his eyes on the stranger by the couch.

Reece felt sudden harsh pressure on his left wrist and the flashlight was stripped from his hand, falling to the floor with a loud clatter. He gripped the gun, pulled back the hammer, and held it outward, ready to fire. He heard footsteps rushing toward him from behind. He held his gun up and fired into the ceiling.

Reece heard the back door slam open with a chorus of footsteps, running toward the kitchen. In the errant beam of his flashlight, he noticed that the person in the trench coat he’d seen earlier was gone. Reece had six more rounds in his Smith & Wesson 686P, but for the first time he felt vulnerable. For all he knew the house was still full of vagrants. He needed that light.

Reece wanted to bend down and grab the light off the floor, but he also wanted to ensure he was alone. The room was quiet. He bent down on one knee, hoping some addict’s dirty syringe wouldn’t stick him. He reached out for the Maglite, feeling the cold hard surface of the floor penetrate his thin pants. The flashlight was just beyond reach. He stretched out farther to snatch it. He heard a faint skid a few inches behind.

Searing pain ripped through his skull, and Reece bit the tip of his tongue, tasting blood. He tried to brace himself but collapsed to the floor, pinning his hand under his shoulder.
My gun,
he thought, struggling to push back up, but the room was spinning crazily and his strength was gone. Reece looked along the beam of the Maglite just beyond his outstretched left hand. He sniffed the wood floor fighting to remain conscious and the smell of urine filled his nostrils. He felt something wet running down the left side of his face, turned his head in that direction, and saw combat boots striding toward him.